I do know what it means to be grateful

Well, it's been a minute.

I realized just now that I've only written two entries here in 2022, and only a handful since this time a year ago. I've never abandoned this space for so long. Although that's not accurate, either; sometimes we all just need to go quiet for awhile. It's easy for me to post a little brain-dump, a snapshot, a moment when it's social media, but frankly, I've had no idea how to approach this little corner of the internet -- how to write about the last year for an audience. I've wanted to, because I believe in telling the truth about our own lives and I think we should all embrace that particular act of bravery in whatever fumbling, messy ways we can, but I also know that all the stories weighing on my heart are not necessarily all mine to share, either.

Motherhood is wild. When my babies were delivered to my chest I couldn't imagine a love more all-consuming than what I felt for them in that new, raw moment. I had no idea that raising young adolescents and teenagers would break and expand my heart beyond anything I could have envisioned when I could still meet all their needs with a hug, with a snack, with a distraction or a bath or a bandaid. Even when I was delirious with exhaustion, even when I stood bleary-eyed in a shower at two o'clock in the morning rinsing off a child's vomit, even when I cried into my hands with frustration after a battle with a stubborn toddler at the end of a hard day and felt I was failing at the thing I thought should just always come naturally, there was always a solution: bedtime rituals, or an extra nap, or antibiotics for an ear infection, or whatever. Something. There was always a baby book nearby. If your child does this, try that.

Sometimes I'm nostalgic for those days, but I wouldn't return to them, either.

These days are hard in ways my new-mama self couldn't have prepared for, but also, the joy and moments of deep contentment and gratitude are everything I always hoped for. These people in my house? They're good people. They're my favorite people in the universe.

*

Teaching is wild, too. I only wrote a few entries here last year, and they are almost too painful for me to read.

One of my rituals at the beginning of a school year is to browse through old journals, to revisit and remember my first day of school as a first-year teacher, as a third-year teacher, as a fifth-year teacher excited to have a baby, as a ninth-year teacher pregnant with her second and a tenth-year teacher nervous about the changes in her school. I love the entries I wrote in the years when I took on the role of MYP coordinator, when Kailey and I sneakily painted my classroom in August, when I visited my classroom on a hot day in late July just to poke my head in, just to visit the space, just to remember that this, too, is home. 

I filled an entire paper journal last year, and the entire journal is too painful for me to read. I've tucked it away for a time when I'm a little less tender. I wrote here a handful of times, and it's hard to read that, too.

*

Some folks stop writing because they think they need to catch up after a long silence. I don't believe that at all. I believe in beginning again, from wherever you are.

So here's where I am: it is a Sunday evening in late September. The days are still so warm, and we haven't had any rain, but the nights are blessedly cool, and the mornings are crisp. The shadows spill across our backyard a little earlier. I'm so ready for the rain to return.

Suzannah is at Open Gym because she is already thinking ahead to basketball season, even though it seems the soccer season just started -- yesterday we all attended her Saturday game and took the dog and cheered for the girls on the dry field in the warn September sunshine. A couple of her teammates from her years of rec soccer play with her now, and a couple of them play on teams for other high schools. Those little girls are so grown now. And even when those girls find themselves playing against each other now, my heart just swells for all that they are becoming. As for mine? She's balancing a heavy academic load with sports and clubs and marching band and I wring my hands and worry a bit but mostly I'm just so thankful for where we are in this moment, which is so much better than where we were in so many moments last year.

Isaac is building something with his enormous Lego set, completely content and absorbed, and my heart swells to watch him, too -- still my little guy, still so unselfconsciously himself at home, willing to lose himself in creative projects. In a few minutes he'll scamper off to his room to play Roblox on his computer, and in an hour or so, I might coax him out to help me make corn bread for tonight's chili dinner. He is still so sweet, and he is absolutely the funniest person I know, full stop. He chose early-morning jazz band over cross country this year, and since he is still doing Tae Kwon Do, I think this is enough for a twelve-year-old. But I admit it: I'm a little sad, too, because one of the things that brought this mama so much joy last fall was watching my boy run, to see him quietly pleased when his teammates high-fived him. But it doesn't mean he can't ever do it again, and I don't want him to lose the joy in anything he happens to be good at just because his mama is the one who wants it more.

Maybe next year.

*

Last night I spoke to one of my very best friends on the phone when he texted and asked if I could talk, and our conversation wrapped itself around my heart and reminded me to nurture what really matters. Another story that isn't mine to share, but the gratitude for the people I love? I can share that. I've spent this entire weekend just thinking about how lucky I am to have landed exactly where I am, all those years ago. How could I have predicted all that followed? The folks who raised and mentored me in this work. The folks doing the work with me now. The babies I've been blessed to raise myself. My friends and colleagues who have taught and continue to teach my daughter. The community in which I live and work. 

I don't know what it means to return to normal, but maybe we have something to learn from that.

I do know what it means to love what I do. I do know what it means to love the folks who are figuring this out with me. I do know what it means to love where I live. I do know what it means to be grateful.

It's late September, and tomorrow I will show up for my fourth week in a new year. I haven't found my groove yet, but I'm grateful all the same.

The Day After

Tomorrow, the day after 19 children were murdered in an elementary school on a Tuesday afternoon in May, I will walk into my classroom knowing that what I had planned is irrelevant. 

I don't know how many times we've had to do this -- walk into a classroom after a mass shooting and fumble our way through. No, literally, I have no idea how many times. Too many. 

All over social media, folks are asking this absurd question: How many children have to be murdered before we do something? It's absurd because we already know that there is no number. If twenty children weren't enough in 2012, twenty aren't enough ten years later, with all the murdered children before and in between. 

The question is absurd, because this isn't something that randomly continues to happen to us. America has chosen this. It is our horror and our shame, and there is no bottom to it.

This will be my nineteenth post specifically tagged with "Guns in America." Nineteen children, so far. The number keeps climbing. 

Tomorrow, I will go to school and grapple with what it means to be a teacher and love students in a country that does not value our lives. Just like every other teacher in America. We're not okay.

This afternoon I texted back and forth with one of my beloved 2018 babies, who was my student and TA during her senior year when seventeen people were murdered at school in Parkland, Florida. Our school building back in 2018 was a nightmare to secure -- so many points of entry, so many unlocked doors -- but at the same time, my classroom had two doors. I knew we could run out one and be outside; the other would take us into an inner room that led to other classrooms, other spaces to hide, other spaces to escape through.

Rachel remembers thinking that she'd run to my room or to the science room, because there were more of those back rooms.

"I imagined every scenario," she said. "How fucked up is that?"

But I did, too. All the time. I remember a sophomore asking me, "What would we do?" And I told them. We talked through how we'd get out, where they'd run, where they'd hide if they couldn't run.

I've posted this conversation before. It went like this:

"But what do you do?"

"I do my damndest to make sure he doesn't get to you."

"You just stay and get shot? That's messed up. We'd stay with you."

"No. You don't."

Look, I'm pretty fucking pissed that's part of the job description, too. But it is. It just is.

Anyway.

Tomorrow I'm going to school the day after a mass shooting where nineteen more babies were slaughtered at school in America. Tomorrow I'm going to go to school and teach in a country that keeps choosing this. And I'm going to talk about it with my kids, because they'll want to. I know them that well by now. My fifth period is going to have a lot of feelings and a lot of questions, and I'll tell you right now that I don't give the remotest of shits that I've been directed to administer the district reading test.

Not long ago, one of them asked, "If we had to get out of this building, how would we even do it?" Our new school is a building ready for violence. In a lockdown, classroom doors lock automatically from the inside and hallway doors seal us inside our corridors. I suppose this should make me feel safe; instead it makes me feel trapped. We haven't actually even had a fire drill since October or something, and even that wasn't so much a drill as it was our too-sensitive smoke alarms tripping every time some kid vaped in a bathroom. When that happens now, they cancel the alarm and tell us all to stay in class. We have no idea what to do in a real emergency anymore. Last fall when we tried to evacuate our three-story building, everyone poured out one entrance, slowly, heading to the football field. I know where my daughter is during every period. Once, she was in weight training; the door was likely open already. Once, she was on the third floor, and my heart drummed madly in my chest. I don't think we even got everyone out of the building before those of us on the field were herded back in.

So I don't know that I'm going to have any answers for them, but I owe them the space to ask and to talk if they want it.

I'm a mama and a teacher and I exist in a perpetual state of terror and grief and rage and hopelessness. I'm grieving hard tonight. And the rage at our apathy and our inhumanity continues to build.

If you're not a teacher, know that we are not okay. Spare us platitudes and prayers without action. It might be possible for you to go to work tomorrow and carry on like normal, even if you're grieving, too (because I know so many of you are also working through terror, grief, and rage) but it's not possible for us. What that looks like in each classroom depends on what our kids need. But even if our kids need us to create a sense of normalcy tomorrow, please know that it's not normal, it's not okay, and so many of us still feel that we're going at this alone, in a deep, lonely darkness. And I just don't see that changing.

October, finally

Two weeks ago I sat at my dining room table, writing to the sound of rain. This is the sound I wait for, every September. The rain was fleeting, but it soothed the edges of my frazzled nerves.

I went for a run after school today. I'm oddly energetic on Friday afternoons, especially on Fridays when I end with a class that never fails to fill my cup. I was in a strange headspace; this week has been particularly hard. But I left school feeling good and wanting to move in the cool sunshine.

It cools off at night now; we still sleep with a fan, but I don't kick away the covers. One night this week I was cold enough to wear socks to bed -- what a lovely feeling. Sunny days aren't oppressive, the way they feel in late August, with our matted lawn, crisp and colorless. The leaves have begun to turn, and they are beautiful. I love the bursts of color on sunny Saturdays in October; this year, I know they'll make me miss our weekend soccer games. 

I missed them last year, too, but I missed a lot of things last year. 

*

These days, our morning routines go like this: Suzannah and I are up early, before the boys. She starts the coffee maker, which Matt has set up the night before, and she drinks one cup with her breakfast. Milk, two teaspoons of sugar. I'm never hungry at that hour, and I don't like to drink coffee quickly, so I simply shower and dress, and the two of us are out the door before dawn. I drive through my favorite espresso stand before we get to school; I discovered them twenty years ago, when I used my lunch break to rush back to my apartment and take my new pug puppy out to potty on the scrap of lawn next to the stairs. In those days, I ordered a black and white mocha and drank it on my way back to school. Now, I stick to Americanos, sometimes black, sometimes with a splash of cream.

On the days when I take Suzannah to school, we park in the teacher lot and walk in together. She gives me a quick hug and heads off towards the Commons area or to hang out with her friends in a patient colleague's classroom, and I walk up the stairs to my new office, where I have extra morning planning time. I've been on a part-time contract since she was born, so I'm not required to be here at this hour -- but Matt and I decided to choice Suzannah into my school, so we share the responsibility of transportation. The extra time feels lovely right now. I'm a morning person by nature, and those extra hours in a quiet space mean it's easier for me to leave my laptop at my docking station at the end of the day. Last year, I never really succeeded at establishing a boundary between work and home, because I taught my classes through that screen at the center of my house.

On the days when I take Isaac to school -- the privilege of a position that is still technically part-time -- we can all sleep just a little longer, or at least we're not as rushed. Matt doesn't need to make himself presentable before he rolls out of bed to drive her to school, and he doesn't need to worry about snagging a spot in the teacher lot -- my school is still under construction, and parking is at a premium. When I go in later, I park behind the football field, nowhere near the entrance that is closest to my classroom. Or any entrance, really. I walk along the track, then up a long paved path to the back entrance next to the health clinic, and then I cross the Commons area and make my way to the stairs that lead to the second floor, where I share an IB office and a classroom.

But it's okay. A year ago, we didn't go anywhere. We drank our coffee and ate our breakfast and logged onto our computers in different rooms of our house. As much as I loved wearing my favorite gray sweats underneath whatever reasonably professional look I managed to put together on top, those gray sweats weren't worth it. As much as I loved having some really sweet time with my family, knowing that it was an unexpected gift -- after all, my kids are not at ages when I would expect to see so much of them, and I really loved it -- it wasn't the natural order of things, and I know how much they need to be with their peers (and please, no one needs to lecture any teachers about this). But I won't write about that here tonight. I tried to write about it a year ago, when I was still trying to justify my paycheck to friends and family who didn't seem to think I deserved it.

I haven't found my sweet spot yet, not at all. I counted it as a victory that I found my teacher mailbox in the main office all by myself for the first time last Friday, without Kailey holding my hand (though she did cheer me on, and I choose to believe it was not entirely mocking). I can make copies now. But I haven't found my groove, that place where I'm actually ready to greet students at my door because everything they need is printed and ready to pick up (and they know the routines to do that) or displayed on a screen (which is now a fancy new Smart Board). Kids haven't had to ask permission to pee in a very long time, so I haven't been consistent with hall passes. We have a system now, but everything, all of these really basic things, are an evolving process. I have to remind kids all day long to wear their masks correctly, which is the only issue I haven't encountered before, and it's the one I care about most right now. Usually, all it takes is eye contact and tapping my own. But it's unmooring, to say the least. All of it. Learning to be human together again. To read each other's signals. To constantly evaluate risk, and maintain that essential connection at the same time. It all matters so much.

This is what it means to be back in a classroom full-time. It's too crowded, of course. I'm no stranger to over-crowded classrooms; my first of teaching, I had 42 students in my first period class. But during a pandemic, when we have to provide seating charts for contact tracing, full classrooms bring a different level of anxiety. The first time I stood in front of a full class, I found it difficult to breathe, and it wasn't because of my mask.

Speaking of which: teaching through a mask isn't my favorite, but it's infinitely better than teaching through a screen. I'm watching schools in other parts of the country -- and, this week, a private school in my own state -- close because Covid is tearing through their classrooms, and my anxiety rises. My anxiety rises, and so does my anger. My whole body thrums with it. I am so grateful to live in a state with a mask mandate, because it is the best chance we have of keeping kids in school without putting them at even more risk. I'm furious at folks who think that doing this tiny thing is giving into "fear." I'm furious at folks who think that protecting vulnerable members of our community is an imposition on their personal freedom, that we should expect them to "stay home if they're scared." As if we should render them invisible. As if we haven't already. 

Right now, I just want my son vaccinated. Sometimes I think it will be a miracle if he can avoid quarantine until then. I found myself murmuring in the car two weeks ago, Please let him just get to run in his first cross-country meet. And please just let him not get sick. Sure, he'd probably be fine, right? But look, this mama has already experienced what it's like to have a healthy child suddenly hospitalized at Mary Bridge Children's, with a pediatric nephrology team taking care of him. 

Is that what it means to "live in fear"? 

We were lucky. We were so lucky. And on a normal weekday, we waited for hours in the ER for a bed. I would be so terrified to need any sort of hospital care now, when we can't assume a bed will be available at all. Washington is taking on transfers from Idaho. My home state is rationing medical care. My best friend who works for a clinic in Minnesota reports that they're struggling to find open beds for non-COVID patients.

Most healthy children don't suddenly go into kidney failure, but some of them do. Don't come at me with your statistics, especially if you're too precious to wear a mask for twenty minutes inside a grocery store. I think a measure of our humanity might just be our willingness to wear that stupid mask to protect someone else's child. That's the only sort of world I want to live in. So I'm pretty depressed these days.

*

Anyway, my son managed to escape quarantine before his first cross-country meet last week. And my greatest fear was not, honestly, that he would get sick -- because he is incredibly conscientious about wearing a mask and because we are lucky enough to live in a district that requires them. I just know that he needs these experiences, these connections, and I want him to have them.

He ran hard, with absolute determination, and he took third overall and first for his school. Yesterday he shaved something like forty-five seconds off his time; he threw himself against the fence, panting and red-faced but clearly pleased after he crossed the finish line. He did not get any of this from me. I require a tremendous amount of validation from for huffing around my neighborhood for awhile. I was highly allergic to P.E. and running the mile until P.E. classes were no longer required. Listen, I was the kid vomiting at the side of the track because I really wanted that stupid A on my report card. (I'm told P.E. doesn't work like that anymore and I am so glad.) 

Cross-country is a perfect pandemic sport, and perfect for my high-energy son who is very active but has zero interest in "organized" sports. I watched him run, and then I watched him bounce up and down and cheer for every single teammate until they crossed the finish line. This is what it means to be part of a community. Toxic individualism tells us that our "personal freedom" is what we should fight for, instead of the greater whole. But we are part of something bigger than ourselves.

*

I've tried to write here so many times in the last two weeks, since the afternoon when I sat at my table, listening to the rain. I don't know how to tell all the stories that matter right now.

So much can change in an hour

Sometimes it's hard to know how to dress for a walk at this time of year. Late April in the Pacific Northwest is often gorgeous, with bright blue skies and soft breezes, but it's been a cold and dry spring; sometimes sunny days hide a biting wind. Last week I thought the afternoon was warm enough for a thin, long-sleeved shirt and I shivered through the first two miles. A few days later I wore a t-shirt and a hoodie and wound up with sweat trickling down my back before tying the hoodie around my waist and arriving back home with a sunburn.

This morning, I taught through a drizzle that turned to rain. My classroom door was propped open, because it always is; the district has provided air purifiers to classrooms, but my broken window is still broken and my unventilated building is still full of mold. I'd likely have left my door open, COVID or no COVID, because I like fresh air and I love the smell of spring. 

(I've missed the sound of a steady spring rain outside my classroom door, singing across the tops of the covered walkways. I won't miss the broken concrete sidewalks when we move into our new building in the fall, but I will miss the sound of rain.)

The rain tapered off throughout the morning. When Suzannah I arrived at home before lunch it had stopped completely, and by the time I'd signed out of afternoon office hours the sun was peeking through the clouds. My son went outside to blow bubbles; Suzannah bounced a basketball in the driveway. I shut down my laptop, put it away, changed my clothes and pulled my hair into a ponytail, and headed outside to walk the streets of my neighborhood like I've done almost every single day since March of 2020.

And I was cold at first. Five minutes into my walk I have the choice to walk down the hill to the edge of the water or up the hill for more panoramic views that take me through the streets overlooking Puget Sound. Both are lovely, but I chose to walk uphill, away from the wind, and soon I found myself sweating as the clouds dissipated. The water was a brilliant blue, and everything was blooming. I wished I'd brought sunglasses.

I turned on to a shaded side street, and this time I relished the cool breeze.

So much can change in an hour. In a month. In a year.

*

This is what our mornings look like now: 

I wake up early, like I always do, but instead of reading on the couch in the pre-dawn light before my family rises, I shower and dress right away. I put on jeans instead of lounge pants underneath my shirt. I do not drink coffee at the dining room table while I prep for the day; I don't drink coffee at all, actually, unless I pull through my favorite coffee stand on the way home before lunch. Which I do. Partly because I love coffee, even if I have to wait until after ten o'clock in the morning to drink it, and partly because I miss the familiarity of that routine. This week I pulled up to the window and the barista cried, "You're back!" And she still knows my order, even after all this time.

My daughter is also an early riser, so there are no morning battles. She gets herself up, dressed, and fed, and the two of us are ready to leave the house an hour before she can check in for her daily health attestation. This is the life of a teacher's kid. We drive to school together and she hangs out in my classroom with me until it's time for her to check in, pick up her laptop for the day, and head to class.

I didn't expect that we'd be back in the building this year, because COVID continues to spread, school districts continue to be less than transparent about reporting, and we continue to learn. But here we are. We have two classes on campus in the morning, followed by an hour break for lunch and travel time, and two classes in the afternoon. On Thursdays and Fridays, we switch. Each class meets on campus twice a week, for those students who have chosen the hybrid model. Teachers manage both at the same time. Or we try. Two weeks in, and I'm still spinning. How can I make everyone feel included? How can I teach in-person from behind a desk, six feet away? How can I teach sitting down, through a screen? How can I do both, at once, and let them all know they matter? I have never been a teacher who sits while she teaches. Teaching energizes me; it calls me outside of myself. Forcing that energy through a screen, or through a mask from a distance, feels impossible.

But it also brings me life, even now. Because the alternative is -- what? Not teaching?

*

We made it three whole days into Hybrid before we had to quarantine a few classes due to a positive COVID case on campus. And I know perfectly well how many "friends" on social media think that quarantining, at this point, is an overreaction, and masks are merely "virtue signaling." I wonder how many of those folks have sat with a student (even virtually) who lost a grandparent -- or a parent -- to COVID. (For the record, I can't think of anyone even semi-close to me who has died from the flu, and certainly not multiple people. Just saying. For those of you who keep saying it's no worse, no different than the flu.) I wonder how many of those folks have lost a friend, or worried about a child. I wonder how many of those folks actually care about anyone other than themselves and their -- rights? Is that really the word we're using? Is this toxic individualism, or is it ignorance? Does it matter?

My son is still fully remote and will be through the end of the year. He isn't "muzzled" (and if you've used that word to describe children wearing masks, you're an asshole). He's thriving with his absolutely wonderful teacher and his classmates, and he -- as an eleven-year-old -- understands that sometimes we make sacrifices to keep other people safe. I wish more adults did.

My son also went into sudden and total kidney failure when he was little and we spent some time at Mary Bridge Children's Hospital. He has a clean bill of health now, but since we're seeing a lot of "oh, well, they had an underlying condition" comments regarding kids and COVID, you'd best believe I am not fucking around with that. You'd also best believe that if you're one of the folks who says, "If you're scared, YOU stay home!" then I think you're the very worst of humanity. (If we're friends on social media, I literally have no idea why. I keep saying this, and folks keep not believing me.)

As a teacher called back to the classroom -- a place I belong -- I understand exactly why our kids need to be back in school. I do not understand folks who are outraged about sending their kids to school in masks. Look, none of us love them (though they are nice when it's freezing outside, or when one has a zit on one's chin), but decent human beings understand that being uncomfortable sometimes is the very smallest price to pay for someone's life, or even for someone's well-being. Unless you're an asshole.

*

Years of journals reveal that I always think that May is the worst month to be a teacher. This is from 2017:

There is something about this time of year that I love, even when it's hard, even when I say (and mean) that May is the worst month to be a teacher, so far from the romance of September. Everyone is so done. But also, the promise of summer, of long, languid afternoons spent sprawled on the patio with a book and a glass of iced tea while the kids run through the sprinkler -- it's still just around the corner, far enough away that I'm not yet afraid of it slipping through my fingers. The anticipation is delicious, and it's just close enough.

Even in a Pandemic Year. There is something about this time of year that is awfully sweet, despite everything. And in this Pandemic Year, something about being back on campus after a full year away is more than that. Maybe it's everything. And for six weeks, I can do anything. 

And it is not lost on me that I am lucky to teach exactly where I am. That I am lucky enough to raise my kids in this community.

*

Teaching, right now, feels a bit like going on long walks in late spring, in a strange year. I never really know what to wear. I'm freezing, and then I'm dripping sweat down my back. I pass a lot of friendly neighbors, folks I feel I've gotten to know over the past year. I know who walks their dog early in the morning, who jogs, who takes ambling afternoon walks, who mows their lawn on Wednesdays instead of Saturdays. And then there's the glaring man in the house that, until a few weeks after the storming of the Capitol, displayed a huge "NO MORE BULLSHIT, TRUMP 2020" flag that covered half his siding. In February, he replaced the flag with what looks like a tiny Trump bumper sticker in his window, but he still stands in his yard, smoking a cigar and glaring.

A year ago, I couldn't have imagined this. A year ago, I couldn't process the possibility that we wouldn't be back in school September. I couldn't imagine my fourth grade son not setting foot inside a classroom before middle school; I mourned my little girl's lost freshman year. 

I roll with it, as well as I can. If the last year has taught me anything, it is that the world happens to all of us, and all things considered, we are senselessly privileged. I can't control the anti-mask assholes; I can't control much of anything, really. But I can try my damndest to advocate for and protect my family. I can try my damndest to serve my students, knowing full well that I can't give them enough of what they need.

I have no idea how to effectively use multiple screens, cameras, or any other tricks to engage both in-person and remote learners at the same time and make them realize that they are a class and a community, together. I can only hope that the energy I try to project shows them that they matter. 

We have six weeks left. In a Pandemic Year, that's enough for teachers to admit that they're exhausted and done, and the same is true for our kids. But the pandemic isn't their fault, either, and they still deserve our best.

And to be clear: that doesn't mean our best teaching, because that isn't possible in this context. But maybe we can give something else. Maybe we can extend grace to our kids, and to each other. Maybe we can hang on to the reasons we're here to begin with. Maybe we can take what we've learned from this year and make ourselves better. I need to believe that all is not lost.

*

I walked and walked after school today, trying to clear my head through sunshine and clouds, spatters of rain and fresh breezes. I was chilled, and then I was too hot. I waved at friendly faces and ignored the one who wasn't. 

The air smelled like heaven.

At the End of the Day: When Teaching Isn't Enough

We usually have student-led conferences once in the fall, usually in early November, and once in the spring, usually in late March. It's a few days of crazy: two late nights, two long days, and one early morning. Families filling the room, Leadership students parting the crowds with their carts of snacks and water bottles, the air in the library or the cafeteria too hot, the noise too much.

It's exhausting, especially for an introvert. After our conferences I don't want to talk to anyone for awhile.

However, I also kind of love them. I honestly don't dread them. I even look forward to them. Because when we teach well over a hundred students, we don't often get the chance to steal a few minutes with each one of them, one-on-one, to say: "Let me tell you what I love about you." And to say that to their parents. And when their parents are expecting the opposite, that matters so much.

I was skeptical about moving conferences to a remote setting, where we only met with our advisory classes, because parents want to talk to their kids' teachers. But we're surviving a pandemic and we're all doing the best we can do, so Zoom conferences it is. And I have to say, there are some things I don't hate about this.

First of all, I'm lucky enough to have almost all of my advisory students in my English classes, and the ones I don't teach fit in so beautifully with the dynamic of our group that I enjoy my time with them, too. Second of all, I think I've actually met with more parents. Often, during those frenetic after-school and evening hours, students will come to conferences alone because their parents are working, or they're juggling schedules with more than one child, or they're tired. This year, parents can join a Zoom from work. Or parents in different households -- when that works for them -- can join a meeting together without having to share a physical space. Or they can schedule back-to-back conferences for their children at different schools without adding in driving time and wondering how they'll manage to get everyone fed at a reasonable hour. 

I think about accessibility a lot these days. We're doing our best; we can always do better. We've learned a lot this year, and I hope we don't lose that in a rush to return to "normal." And I don't know what "normal" means anymore.

Here's what I do hate, though:

When a student logs on for a solo conference and keeps their camera off when they'd normally turn it on. They know me; I taught them last year, before the Pandemic. We've had our moments: good ones, terrible ones, plenty in between. I've been pissed at this kid, I've loved this kid. Both, at the same time. I've seen this kid grow. I've seen this kid slack, I've seen this kid work hard. I've lost sleep over them, and I've been mad about that.

I've heard this kid's voice in so many contexts over the past two years: Snarky. Sarcastic. Assy. Apologetic. Sorry. Sincere. Overwhelmed. Determined. Playful.

On my end, I've threatened, cajoled, reasoned, laughed, growled, sighed.

This is teaching. This is love, at the end of the day. Exasperated, worried, amused, frustrated, angry, concerned, hopeful love.

When this student logs in for their solo conference, camera off, the silence stretching a bit too long, I ask: Are you okay?

And I hear it in their response, after the silence: "Ehh. I'm okay." I know their voice, and I know they are not okay.

And there is just fuck-all I can do about it, really. I can say, "Hm. Okay. I remain unconvinced, and I'm worried about you." And then I hear them crying.

And this is where I feel just fucking helpless. Because when kids cry in my classroom, I can offer them Kleenex. If they want it, I can offer a hand on their shoulder, or a hug. I can read their face, their body language, and know what to say, or know what to try. But when a kiddo is crying on the other side of a screen and I know it's partly because they already trust me, and when it's clear they are trying very hard to hide the fact that this is what is happening, I want to cry right back, even though I still believe that our kids don't need the added burden of their teachers' tears. (This rule does not apply when seniors leave my class for the last time, but that should go without saying.)

Do not tell me our kids need to be back in school for their mental health. If you are not a teacher, you need to stay in your lane, because teachers know this. We know this. We also know that sitting in English class, or showing up for a standardized test (let's be honest about the push to get our kids back to school) doesn't address their mental health needs. Maybe they do need to sit in a classroom with their English teacher, or their math teacher, or their music teacher. They do need other humans. So do their teachers. But that isn't enough to address "mental health," and it's insane to pretend otherwise. I will be there to listen on the other side of a screen; in a classroom, I will be there with a box of Kleenex and open arms. (Except...we're in a Pandemic, yes we are, still, and we're not supposed to get too close.)

I will think about this student all weekend. I will follow-up on Monday by sending a message in chat, by popping into a breakout room, by saying, "Can you please come to office hours today?" Maybe they will. But nothing about this is normal, and in a normal year, this wouldn't be enough anyway.

Hope, or something like it

The other night I was clearing out my medicine cabinet, getting rid of long-expired cold medicine, separated nail polish I haven't worn in a decade, things like that. A small container of muscle relaxers caught my eye. They expire tomorrow, a year after they were prescribed.

Isaac and I were driving home from his dentist appointment on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon last March when an older woman slammed into us from behind. We were completely stopped behind another car at a red light; she didn't even slow down. When she rear-ended us, our car slammed into the car in front of us.

Isaac didn't see it coming, and while he was terrified by the crash, the sickening metal crunch -- we both screamed -- he was perfectly fine afterwards, both immediately and in the days that followed. Our CR-V was only three years old, well designed to protect its occupants in a crash even when the car itself was a total loss, and his limber young body was relaxed when the car hit; he didn't see it coming.

I did see it coming, unlike everything else that would unfold over the coming days, weeks, months. I saw her speeding toward us in my rearview mirror, saw her not slowing. I couldn't do anything to avoid what I suddenly understood would happen, and my entire body braced for the impact. The next day I left school early with a terrible headache and a stiff neck and took myself to the doctor for X-rays. They came back okay, but the doctor recommended an appointment with a physical therapist.

I remember sitting in the waiting room with exactly one other patient, a flushed and lethargic woman who kept coughing weakly, her head dropping. She sat near the door; I sat as far away from her as I physically could. In early March, we weren't wearing masks yet.

*

That night I swallowed one of those muscle-relaxers before drifting into an uneasy sleep. 

I knew things were changing, but forty-eight hours earlier I was only beginning to adjust to the idea of holding student-led conferences by phone instead of flooding the school with families for three days. The next day, we learned that schools would be closed for six weeks. We had twenty-four hours to process this, and one day to gather up what we could and say good-bye to our students.

It's been nearly a year since I hugged one of my kids in D-7.

That last Friday, I expected our classes to be empty, but almost all of my students showed up.

“What about our assignments that are due this month?” 

“What about IB testing? Does that still start at the same time?"

“Are we really closed for six weeks? What about graduation?”

I couldn’t require my students to work during the break, or assign anything for grading. An issue of access and equity, we were told. I thought of my students who would be caring for younger siblings, who only had internet access at the public library—which, I was sure, would close as well. I thought about my students who would work extra shifts now, to earn money or to escape or both.

“None of us are going through this alone, even though it’s going to be hard to be apart," I said. "We’ll still figure it out together. I’m not really going anywhere. I’m going to check my e-mail at least once a day, and I promise I’ll respond to you. I’ll post ways to practice for the exams and we can have online discussions. It’s totally optional, so if you can’t do it don’t worry about it.”

They nodded.

“Try to get outside if you can,” I said. “Don’t stare at your phones all day. Clean your backpacks. Clean your rooms. Read! Read something that’s not for my class! Borrow one of my books!” I pointed at the bookshelf along the wall.

“Wait, we can borrow those?” asked one of my kids.

“What do you mean, can you borrow those? Why do you think I have them here? They’re not decorations, Babies. If you don’t borrow them, they’re just going to sit there.”

“I’ve borrowed tons of Winslow’s books!” said another. “I think I still have a couple, actually.”

“What do you think I’d like? Can you recommend something?”

I walked towards the bookshelf and they jumped up to follow me like little ducklings. When I pulled On the Come Up by Angie Thomas from the shelf and tried to hand it to one of them, her friend grabbed it before I had a chance.

“I’ve been waiting for this! Mine! I get this one!”

“Bro, what the hell."

“You can have it when I’m done. I’ll probably finish it, like, by Sunday."

“I beg and beg and beg you all to read,” I muttered. “And you do not read. And now look.” But I didn’t hide my smile.

At the end of class, I said, “You all drive me crazy. But you have no idea how much I’m going to miss you.” As I said that, I felt a sudden rush of tears to my eyes. 

I calculated quickly: if we returned in six weeks, I’d have two or three classes before they began their IB testing in May. My time with them as I had known it for the past two years had come to a sudden end, no matter what lay ahead.

They lingered after the bell, leaving slowly. Most of them stood in my doorway, waving.

“You have to go to French,” I said. “You have to go to history.”

(I didn't let the tears fall; I try to reserve that for my last day with my seniors, if it comes to that, because kids are burdened by enough without having to deal with a teacher's tears, and it felt like an important time not to fall apart. But I didn't know it was, in fact, my last day with my seniors.)

One of them turned back suddenly and threw her arms around me. By then, we weren't supposed to touch each other. But in the end, I couldn’t turn away from these kids, not with so much looming unknown. A year later, knowing what I know now, I'm so desperately glad for that last hug.

*

There are few folks I want to talk to these days who aren't my students or other teachers, frankly. I'm tired of the headlines pitting parents against teachers (what about those of us who are both?). I'm tired of the vitriol from folks who claim teachers are making excuses not to return to work.

Another teacher friend expressed a familiar sadness: friends she had always thought of as like-minded kindreds suddenly had plenty of things to say about teachers and returning to schools. Once, I tried to argue back -- yes, some schools can do it safely. But I hope my last post made it clear that not all of us can, and not before we're vaccinated. 

If you think I wouldn't give anything to be back in the classroom with the kids I know and love, already accepting the reality that I would take a bullet for them, then you don't think much of me as a teacher. Please don't consume the stories of my students for your entertainment, or to feel good. Please don't imply that I am looking for an excuse not to be with them (as our oblivious, dismissive, and tone-deaf governor has), or that I think you don't work hard too. Otherwise we know why you want us back and it has little to do with the kids.

(That said, I am so thankful for my friends who have reached out with kindness and solidarity. Please believe it matters. This has been one of the most demoralizing years I've experienced in a twenty-year career.)

Still, there are moments of magic. There are moments of joy, every week. I deeply appreciate my community, I love my students and my colleagues, and the work is worth it. I won't leave the work because it is hard right now; this isn't my time to go. I almost left teaching once, and I'm not in that place now. (But damn, have I struggled this year. I'm also a seasoned teacher who has had enough therapy and experience to understand that the world happens to all of us and still believe that I am where I'm supposed to be. I have the support and access to resources to take care of myself. Even in this struggle, I am senselessly privileged.)

*

I received my first dose of the COVID vaccine on Sunday morning. Because I write about everything all the time, I know that date fell exactly one year after the last time we dined inside a restaurant, which is? was? something we enjoy and miss. I'm looking forward to sliding into one of the cozy wood booths at the Elliott Bay Brewery with my family again. In the meantime, ordering takeout is not a burden, and I'm glad to support our favorite restaurants each week.

On Sunday I drove across the tide flats in the early morning light, parked on a quiet street, and walked into a building next to Tacoma General. I took a seat, answered some questions, accepted some papers. Vaccine information. Call this number if.

I scanned the room: lots of teachers. A few older couples who had come in together. I listened in on everyone's conversations, because I'm always curious. Teachers were there from so many districts. What do you teach? Oh, that's my son's grade! He's doing okay, but he misses his friends so much. It's just hard, you know?

We know.

The nurse who handed me my Vaccine Fact Sheet was beaming.

"I'm so, so happy we're getting so many teachers!" she said. "Our kids need to be back in school, but not until it's safe for everyone."

I nodded. "We know."

*

I drove home, the morning still quiet, the sky still lovely.

I felt something like jet lag before lunch. I thought I'd curl up for a nap in the quiet afternoon, but the fatigue wore off before then. I napped for an hour anyway. I felt fairly energetic for the rest of the day. By dinnertime, my arm was sore and I slept restlessly on Sunday night, but after a hot shower the next morning, I felt perfectly normal.

I took a long walk on Saturday morning, and I saw the first buds of spring on a tree along a quiet street. 

It is cherry blossom season again. 

Yesterday, I saw more of them. Soon, the cherry blossoms will flutter over the sidewalk and land in my hair. I'll reach up to touch them when I walk underneath their fluffy canopy. I've written about cherry blossoms in this space every year, I think, and who can blame me? I love the language of trees in any season, but cherry blossoms are about waking up. Last year, even as the world shut down, the cherry blossoms in the spring air were a reminder to stay awake and present in the only life I have.

I'm grateful to be here.

Notice, Listen, Care

 It's strange to think I've been walking the streets around my neighborhood every day for a year.

Not that it's strange to walk around my neighborhood, really. I've done that for years. But until schools shut down last March, I walked (or ran) with exercise in mind. I still appreciate the exercise, but it became something very different. I felt an urgency -- as everything seemed to come to a sudden and terrible stop -- to be present exactly where I was. To experience it, and to notice it. Consciously.

So I walked, broadening my route until I was exploring streets I'd never seen even after years of loving this neighborhood. I walk near the water every day, either down to the shore or up the hill with the sweeping view of the sound, the mountains. As the weather warmed, I noticed open windows on a house I thought was abandoned. As the days shortened and the air cooled and I walked at sunset instead of at dawn, I saw the glow of lights in the windows. And then one day, a neighbor who often walks at the same time I do fell into step across the road and gave me a walking tour of those streets. I learned the life story of the man who lived in that beautiful house with the overgrown yard and the driveway filled with broken cars, and I thought about how easy it is not to look, not to notice, not to care.

Today, I walked by a yard I pass every day, lush with plants, and smelled a scent I recognize from last March: the particular sharpness of spring. And I thought about how I know exactly which bushes will begin to flower, and when, and in what colors. I know where I'll see the most bees, and the most baby rabbits. The seasons shift, like they always do. The blossoms will return. And I want to stay awake to it all.

*

It has been a long and terrible week, but not a terrible day. Even now, half a school year into Remote Learning v. 2.0 (which bears little resemblance to the necessary triage of last spring), even now when the news pits parents against teachers in the headlines, when I cannot click on any article about education without reading comments demanding that I "go back to work" or "quit if I don't like my job," magic still happens. It still happens in a fumbling, accidental, joyful way. Even over a screen.

I was reviewing a technique known as "color-marking" among literature teachers. It's an analytical tool involving colored pencils (or the highlighter on a Google doc) that helps students read closely and identify patterns in a text, which will then lead to their ability to analyze it effectively. It will help them practice "Guided Literary Analysis" for their IB exams, but more importantly, it will help them slip inside a well-crafted sentence and understand exactly why it exists. I hope, anyway.

I absolutely love color-marking. As in, for fun.

I modeled it for my juniors today as we looked at the opening passage of the novel we're starting. My friend and heart-twin Rebecca made a video about this process and graciously gave me permission to share it with my students. Before I played it, I said, "I need you guys to understand the depth of my nerdiness, and also my love. I love this. I do this for fun. Do you guys remember the first week of first quarter, when I shared the poem 'Alabanza' with you and we talked about it a bit? And then I played the video of the author reading it aloud, and he was obviously far more powerful than I was?"

They remembered.

"Well, Ms. Crawford and I thought we'd teach this poem for the first time about ten years ago. We sat in my classroom with a bunch of colored pencils between us, and we marked it up together, in furious ecstatic silence until one of us burst out with, 'What are you noticing?' and the other would respond. Listen. We skipped lunch. This is exciting. This is the heartbeat of what I love about reading and teaching."

"Aww," one of the kids typed in chat. "That's actually really great."

So we dove in. I pulled up a blank copy of the passage and shared my screen and started highlighting.

"The thing I hope you take away from this," I said, as I fumbled around with trying to highlight something in one color and write a comment in the margin, "is that this is about the process. It's not a product. This is what thinking looks like on a screen, or a page, and that's messy. Your color-marking isn't going to look like mine, and that's okay. This isn't about highlighting what you think you're supposed to find; it's about highlighting what you notice along the way."

I said those words aloud so I would believe them. It was surprisingly unnerving to be vulnerable in this moment, to approach this passage like a student, without an answer key. But that was also entirely the point.

"I've read this novel more than once," I continued. "I mark up my books, I make notes in the margins. But I've never just sat down with this passage, to dive in and see exactly how the author does it. How she drops us into the scene and lets the tension unfold. And looking at it now, seeing how she reveals an entire scene with these tiny glimpses of movement, how she lets the whole situation unfurl with the way a character folds a jacket over the back of a chair, or the way she packs a suitcase--this is really interesting! It's about what she doesn't include. Or what she doesn't say. It's about noticing what's in those spaces."

I love color-marking because it's about noticing. And caring.

I didn't notice when my evaluator joined my class for an unannounced, drop-in observation; when I share my screen, I can't see my full class without scrolling down the sidebar. I had no idea she was there. And that's fine; I'm never nervous about observations. Sometimes my evaluator will see some direct instruction, and sometimes she'll see me standing in the corner (or she would, in the days when I taught in a room with my students), trying to blend in to the furniture while I watch my students work. Those are the days when the magic usually happens. If an observer doesn't see what they expect to see, I can explain exactly what I want to see from my class.

It still startled me a bit, when my evaluator sent me a private note in the chat: "Always so fun to see you in action!" I laughed out loud, but she was already gone.

*

My friend Megan shared an article with me this week: "Teacher Demoralization Isn't the Same as Teacher Burnout." I couldn't read the entire article at once because it hurt too much.

When I tell you about unsafe working conditions, when I talk about how my colleagues are sickened by their buildings (nevermind the children drugged by their parents to mask symptoms of illness), when I tell you that the conversation about "good ventilation" as a condition for students returning safely to school, you should listen to me. I've been teaching for twenty years.

The carpet in the classroom my first year of teaching was so moldy I was sick within a week. So was the teacher I shared with. Both of us were new to the building; when we reported it, we were laughed at. Mocked. Belittled. It wasn't that bad, and we weren't tough enough. Finally, to placate our whining, someone shampooed the floors over a long weekend. In that room with no ventilation, without an open window, the soggy floor festered. The stench on Monday was unbearable. Kids wouldn't walk inside. Finally, the office manager rolled her eyes and marched down to our room, ready to prove that we were making a fuss over nothing. She opened the door, took one step inside, and backed out again, bending over with dry heaves. The district slapped a new layer of cheap carpet over an old problem, and my colleague and I taught in the library and the cafeteria after lunch for a week. Our students spread their notebooks over surfaces sticky with ketchup.

This week I thought about how optics matters far more to the public than safety. I thought about how the Superintendent of Public Instruction said our schools have "good ventilation." And I shared a few things.

My classroom window has been broken for the entire time I've been teaching in that space. If someone wants to do the math, that was the fall of 2008. At least I have a window.

Last year, the floor swelled so badly due to moisture and mold that I couldn't open my inner door at all. The custodian managed to shave off the bottom of the door. The door wasn't the main problem, obviously, but at least I could open it.

Another colleague reports that a portion of the wall under a window is duct-taped so it will stay in place.

Sometimes water stains are covered with a sloppy layer of paint, but somehow, they resurface.

Sometimes, teachers have to be strategic in arranging their furniture because the sagging spots in the floors won't safely support the weight of a person sitting in a desk.

Sometimes, when the boilers aren't working, my colleagues heat their classrooms with bunsen burners. Others bring space heaters from home.

Bats live in our ventilation systems.

The flooding on our campus in moderate rain is so extreme that we've stepped into trash cans to wade over our doorsills without soaking our socks.

Water pipes burst, flooding the floors. Last year, one of our colleagues returned from their honeymoon over winter break to find caution tape over their boarded-up door. Another time, a colleague strolled through the commons area with an umbrella while water poured from the ceiling.

We returned from a break to caution tape over our sinks, our drinking fountains. We couldn't drink the water after it tested too high for lead.

The heat in one building randomly skyrockets to 90 degrees while an adjoining room freezes. Kids walk out of both, because fuck this.

Infestations of ants abound. We ban eating in our rooms. It doesn't matter. They're all over our desks, our windowsills, swarming in the trash cans.

All this was before the Pandemic. We have been telling you these stories for years. But you only want to hear the funny stories, or the heartwarming ones. The "pick yourself up by the bootstrap" stories. You want the entertainment without the commitment. You want to feel good. You want to compliment the token teacher in your lives and "like" their Facebook anecdotes without advocating for what our kids--yes, ours--actually need.

It shouldn't be surprising that teachers have a hard time trusting "data." We know how transparent districts are. And with the pressure of white parents and the optics of progress, we don't stand a chance, do we?

*

My colleagues and I have laughed through ant infestations and wearing trash cans on our feet to wade through inches of water that spill across our carpets when we just want to teach our kids. We might laugh together, but no one else can. NO ONE ELSE. We laugh to survive. The rest of America is silent. We have been telling you all of this for years. Years. So do not. Do. Not. Come at any teachers telling them what's "safe" or what is BEST FOR OUR KIDS. Not when you never spoke up about our unsafe buildings, our unsafe drinking water, or flat-out miserable conditions.

Not when you consumed our stories without speaking out on our behalf.

Do not. Do. Not. Come at me with your concern for the children. Do. Not. Your silence and your complicity has already spoken for you.

*

It's easy not to look, not to notice, not to care. I'm asking you do do all of those things. Look. Notice.

Sit in this present moment. Recognize the magic that happens despite the devastation. Wonder. Get curious. Care. And ask: What might be possible if we could do better?

I never want to be a closed door

Teaching challenges every assumption I make about teenagers. Every single year.

I still make them. I don't mean to, but I do. These days, with a bit of age and experience, I can usually remind myself to extend grace to these kids, but there are moments. 

I've been reminded so many times this month that this isn't school like normal. I can't expect what I normally expect because I can't support kids like I know how to do. Sometimes kids access my class from their phones in a parking lot. Sometimes they drive to a friend's house in a different town to borrow their laptop so they can log in. Sometimes they're caring for younger siblings or neighbors' kids, and their houses are chaotic and they literally have people climbing on them while they're trying to annotate a passage from a novel (two of my students allowed me to see that this week when they turned on their cameras, bless them). 

But all the same, I'm human, and dammit, I want them to do well. I mean, I also a little bit want them all to fall deeply in love with what I'm teaching because I love it so! much! And I hate not being able to communicate that to a room. Sometimes teaching is performance. It's hard to be my best teacher self when I'm mostly staring at my own face reflected on a screen. I get tired of looking at my own face. I can't blame kids for keeping their cameras off.

Still, I am working hard, and sometimes I let frustration get the better of me. Why hasn't that child even dropped a comment into the chat box? Why haven't they signed up for an incredibly non-threatening five-minute time slot to chat with their friendly and frankly sort of desperate English teacher, just so she can hear their voice? Especially when she begs, insisting again and again it won't be scary?

So it's easy to assume, this close to the end of the quarter, that a student is lazy, or doesn't care, or isn't cut out for my class. Especially if I don't know them. The only face I have is the face on last year's student ID badge, the face that shows up in my online gradebook. If I've done everything I'm supposed to -- I've contacted home, I've e-mailed, I've texted, I've sent private messages in the chat during class -- what else can I reasonably be expected to do?

Then this tiny message appeared in the chat, right as class ended: Miss, can I stay after?

I almost missed it. I had to pee. I wanted my five-minute break. Students from my next class had started to pop into the waiting room.

I waited, staring at the name, the same white letters stark against a black square. Would this be like the other times, when this student just didn't log off at the end of class? When, after long, silent minutes I assumed he'd ghosted my class, logged on and left, taken a nap?

"Miss?"

"Hi! Yes! I'm here!" 

I laugh at this a bit, hours later. Of course I was there, trying to calm my face, ecstatic at hearing a tentative voice through that black screen, trying not to scare him away. It reminds me a bit of taming feral kittens on the farm. Sometimes I was successful. Not always.

"Um. I'm sorry I haven't ever talked to you before."

My heart broke in that moment. It just broke. But I kept smiling.

"It's okay! I'm glad you're here. How can I help you?"

"I don't know if this is okay to ask, because one of my teachers told me it's too late to do a bunch of stuff. So I don't know. If it's -- I mean, it's okay, but my situation -- it's been hard, so I haven't been able to -- but some things are better now, so I'm trying to catch up enough to hopefully pass your class?"

"I'm so glad you're here, and it's not too late for anything."

"Can you help me?"

And my heart quietly broke again. 

Please never let me forget how much courage that question takes.

In a non-pandemic year, I'll be honest: sometimes it is too late to reasonably do All The Things, or even Enough Things, at this late hour. But when there is no reasonable way for me to support these kids in my actual presence, where I can carve out a routine and semblance of normalcy for awhile (as much as they fight me there sometimes, too), then I will hold the door open as long as someone wants to walk through it. Or as long as I can see someone hovering nearby even thinking about it.

I sent him a list. Do these three things first. Let me make sure you understand this, and then we can tackle this next chunk.

I waited an hour before I sent him a message, hoping against all hope that he would reply when he has never replied to me before.

Did you get it? Let me know!

Ninety minutes passed, but the reply came.

I got it. Thank you. I'm here.

What matters most

Trump is a loathsome monster of a human being, but he is still a human being, and I don't want COVID to kill him.

Some of my friends have some outspoken Trumpers on their friends lists, and those I haven't blocked I sometimes watch with real curiosity. Some claim they're unfriending reams of folks, apparently, for rejoicing over Trump's diagnosis and wishing his dead and this is what's wrong with the hateful left.

None of my more conservative friends are posting this, thank goodness (or if they are, they're filtering me out of it, which I appreciate. Please keep doing that if it applies to you). I also call BS on the ones who are. It's not that I don't believe these posts exist somewhere; I just don't believe the folks who are all, "Time for some FRIENDS LIST CLEANUP because I don't need that kind of hate in my life!" First of all, I could show you just as many random internet posts "rejoicing" at the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg if I spent three seconds hunting for them, and second of all, four days ago your leader attempted to bully his opponent over his dead son, mocked his last living son, refused to denounce white supremacy and told the Proud Boys to stand by, and then he exposed how many people to this virus while he went on to attend events after knowing he'd been exposed (and likely after he tested positive)? The virus he called the "China Plague" on Tuesday night? Tell me more about loving people and being a good human. I'll wait.

For the record, I haven't seen a single person on my own friends list who has "celebrated" Trump's diagnosis. Not one.

It doesn't mean we're wringing our hands, though. It doesn't mean we're wearing our "Oh no, I'm shocked!" faces.

I don't wish him ill. But Trump has access to the best care in the world, and my concern still lies with the folks who have fallen ill and don't have access to those resources and state-of-the-art care, who have lost their lives, who have battled with long-lasting effects of this disease. Who fell victim to his negligence and his lies and his utterly disgusting lack of empathy. Some of these folks are my students and their families. 

I wish the president could feel the effects of this virus enough to empathize with the folks who've suffered far more than he likely will, but I simply don't believe that's possible. He mocked Biden for wearing a mask; four days later he's making a video about "fighting for" all the millions of people who have been infected. I couldn't finish watching after that. Trump has only ever been about one person on this planet.

(Edited to add: See also the bizarre joyride he took today, forcing folks to share a hermetically sealed Covidmobile in what looks like a Weekend at Bernie's moment.)

I don't want him dead. I want him out of the White House.

***

And now for something completely different.

It's October, and we're nearly halfway through our first quarter. I spent nearly the entirety of the last two weekends and all of my weeknights until bedtime planning and uploading and planning and uploading every moment I wasn't actively teaching. This week I felt something shift; it is possible to breathe. Literally breathe.

Every day after school, the kids and I go outside. Often I convince Isaac to head over to the school playground, where he rides his bike and I jog around the track for awhile. Sometimes Suzannah joins us. Often Matt takes a quick work break to walk over as well. Sometimes the kids play basketball or ride the scooter around our house and I walk several miles alone through our neighborhood streets, because I appreciate the burn in my legs and love the sweeping views of Puget Sound. The afternoons have been sunny and warm. The leaves are turning gold against a brilliant sky. Every single day I go outside, just to notice it. To see everything I can, to breathe it in. This, I believe, is what living fully means. It's not about whether or not I can do whatever I want. It's about staying fully present in the moment I'm in.

***

I can complain all day long about how I miss teaching in my classroom. Well, I can teach in my classroom, but I can't be with kids in my classroom. That's unlikely to change any time soon, and as much as I want to be back I also understand that in a Pandemic, what we want is less important than lives, and that is actually what is at stake here. So I choose this instead: to become a better teacher. Even now, especially now.

Remote learning isn't "best" for most of us, but it is what we have, and it is necessary. And it doesn't mean that we give up and grow complacent, because our purpose isn't tied to a place; it is all about the folks we serve, in any context. It is critically important to be intentional in what I teach, and how. It is critically important to think about what matters.

Connecting with kids matters the most, full stop. In a remote setting, this takes intention and work but it is is not impossible.

Helping kids connect their learning with the bigger picture -- the "why" -- matters too. This is why I'm grateful to teach in an IB school, because this is the heart of good IB teaching (well, really good teaching anywhere, period; IB didn't invent that, but the IB mission statement acknowledges that our work is to create a better world, not just to get into a better college, and it's made my teaching more intentional in that way). Concepts over content. Inquiry. Curiosity. Empathy. This week one of my students sent me an e-mail in which she explained that she was worried her responses to an assignment weren't as concise or as clear as she'd hoped, but that she felt incredibly passionate about the topics we've been studying and discussing and she hoped that would come through in her writing.

Yes, I need to teach them how to write well. But first -- first -- I need to tap into their passion, if I can. I need to consider what they care about beyond the walls of our "classroom." I tell them I didn't become an English teacher because my passion is perfect thesis statements or grading essays. I'm an English teacher for the same reason I'm a writer and a reader: to connect. To feel that incredibly solidarity of "Me, too." To share a human experience with someone whose context is different from my own. To feel something enough to act on it. And to share, simply, what I love. This is the essence of what I do, and why.

And doing this over a screen is significantly harder for me. I don't really know how to work a faceless audience, when I'm mostly looking at my own face staring back at me. At least that's how I feel in my low moments, when I'm exhausted and overwhelmed. But I can't drop anchor at exhausted and overwhelmed, because the needs of my kids don't change based on my daily mood or energy level. So I try to remember this: I have an opportunity to try to be better, and I'd best take it. So what I care about this quarter isn't so much whether my students can practice enough for an IB assessment they don't even understand yet; what I care about is making connections with them and guiding their thinking, so they can make their own connections between what we read and the world in which they live. If they can do that now, the rest will follow. And it means they send me these little notes attached to their assignments. Sorry if this isn't clear, I just really get worked up and I'm trying to express that in sentences that make sense.

And that resonates with this teacher. 

***

During the winter of 2019, I met with my friend and colleague Shonda at Starbucks. We were armed with colored index cards and sharpies, the new IB subject guide, and plenty of energy. We decided to keep The Handmaid's Tale because we love that novel (and we had our picture taken with Margaret Atwood herself back in 2013 when she appeared at Seattle Town Hall after the publication of Maddaddam, and you are jealous). We also decided to add James Baldwin. We've gone back and forth over other others to include in other parts of the course, but Baldwin was at the top of the list, and we never considered cutting him. And so when I was faced with the daunting task of choosing what mattered most in a two-year curriculum I love deeply, it was a difficult choice--but then again, not so much. I taught The Handmaid's Tale in the fall of 2016, and it couldn't have been more relevant In the fall of 2020, it feels even essential. I'm teaching a quarter of Revolution and Resistance: James Baldwin and Margaret Atwood. There's no way I'm teaching it well enough, but I'm teaching it with everything I have, all the same. And maybe, maybe, the fact that I can't afford to be careless--I don't have a single moment to spare, really--means I can see this as an opportunity to do better and be better, in any year. 

To Really Live

Friday nights are so full when you're a teacher. When the day ends, my lungs expand to accommodate the biggest breath I've taken all week. Inhale. I can breathe. Exhale. Relief. Inhale. Hope. Exhale. Gratitude.

Relief. Breathing space.

Hope. Things are starting to click with these kids. They might be starting to trust me.

Gratitude. In any setting, remote or otherwise, I haven't lost sight of my purpose, because on most days I remember it isn't tied to a place, to a building. It's embodied in the kids I serve every day, exactly where they are, where we all are.

Friday nights are everything right now. And sure. I ended my work day in my own house today. I walked into the bedroom, changed my shirt, and went out into the breezy, damp afternoon -- just an hour after the rain stopped -- to go for a walk. I needed, desperately, to clear my head.

Clear my head of the comments on literally every single news article about schools and whether they're reopening or not. The comments demanding I get back to work.

Do my job.

Earn my paycheck.

Clear my head of the comments from some of my own friends and family on social media. (Friends, maybe you don't know that when you comment on news articles, it shows up on my feed. If you wonder whether I'm talking about you, rest assured, I absolutely am.)

I'm so tired. I do not know how to explain to people in my life who are not teachers how much harder this is than it has ever been before. I have enough experience in this career -- in this calling -- to make this claim, and to be believed.

This week I drove to a close friend's house to drink wine and snack on appetizers from Trader Joe's in her backyard, on her covered porch. Four of us met there, four of us who have been friends for nearly two decades now. We sat outside wrapped in blankets and hoodies and shared stories and solidarity in the evening breeze. 

We're all teachers, in four different schools, in four different districts. And still, they're my safe space to land. I don't trust many other spaces anymore.

Despite the fact that the four of us are probably as careful as anyone we know, we're still not really doing indoor gatherings. According to some of you, that means we're not really living. But the four of us also believe that 200,000 dead matters, that it's unacceptable, that it shouldn't have to be anywhere near 200,000 dead before we declare it unacceptable, and so we're okay with "sacrificing" a bit of what we're used to. Sharing appetizers on an outdoor porch, even after a storm, is a blessing and a joy, not a hardship. I love eating out on Saturday nights with my family! Love! And we've enjoyed outdoor patio seating many times over the summer. But eating takeout from our favorite places around our own table, while not "the same," is not a hardship. Losing someone you love to a virus that could be controlled so much better if people could prioritize human life over going to the gym or to the bar? That's a hardship. (I feel like pro-lifers should agree with me, but I also think most of us should understand that the pro-life platform is not about valuing human life, and I wish we'd start calling it something else.)

To my non-teacher friends who have extended your kindness and empathy, please believe me, it has not gone unnoticed. Please extend that to the teachers of your own children--they need it, no matter what their current context looks like. Face-to-face seems impossible. (If schools reopening is so crucial, where's our bailout? Do you think I've ever had sanitizing wipes provided for me? Let alone enough pencils, highlighters, paper, notebooks, markers? Nope, I buy those myself. And I would love to know if you can buy enough for your own family right now, let alone a full class load of students, and for a full-time high school teacher in my district that's 180 kids. Can we hire enough teachers to safely teach so many kids?) Hybrid seems so much worse. Prepare for face-to-face and remote learning? Where your in-person kids can't interact safely in student-centered ways that truly support best practices in education? When you still have to do all the work for remote learning, because you can't see all your kids at once? Because your classes have 35 kids or more, and your classroom space allows for sixteen at the absolute most, if you're maintaining anything resembling a safe distance? My kids are going to be able to do a lot more collaborative work, have more productive discussions, and form better connections with each other in breakout rooms online than they are in a classroom right now and that is the heartbreaking truth. This is a pandemic. There is no going safely back to normal, and normal is what we're asking teachers to provide. I'm so sorry. I truly am. I want that, too. But that's not possible in our current context.

To my non-teacher friends who are quick to point out that this is hard for everyone, believe me, we know. Many of us are parents ourselves. I am extraordinarily lucky in that my kids are old enough to manage quite well without needing me to be very hands-on during our school hours, but many of my colleagues have very young children at home, and teaching a class while you have a baby or a preschooler or a restless third-grader or a child with special needs who attends school in a different district that is also currently remote feels, quite simply, impossible. We get it. This is a Pandemic. It's not something that is happening unfairly to you because teachers are sitting around collecting an easy paycheck at your expense.

And to my non-teacher friends who are quick to point out the challenges they face in their own jobs while they're complaining about teachers (we're all allowed to freak out; I just think we should avoid doing the whole "Well, I have to______ so why shouldn't you______" when we don't have anything approaching an understanding for the person we're pointing our finger at), I would like to point out that I cannot open a single news article online -- from any source -- about education or the return to schools that does not include absolute vitriol directed at teachers in its comments. And make no mistake, public school teachers are pretty used to this, but usually I just ignore FOX news, where teachers are used to being screamed at. Now, though, it is incredibly demoralizing and personal in a way I've never experienced, largely because folks who have claimed to support us in the past are chiming in with their disgust now, now, as we're working harder than we ever have. Maybe we're an easy target, a faceless entity to absorb people's real need to vent (I understand so much of folks' frustration, I do). But we're not a faceless entity. Stop pretending you support the teachers in your life while ranting about us online. We see you.

On that note, if anyone wants to challenge me on this and send me an article about this very charged topic of schools reopening that doesn't include reams of comments explaining to me what a piece of shit I am, I'd love to see it. I don't think it exists. I'd love to be proven wrong.

***

I started writing this on Friday night; it's Sunday evening now.

This weekend, I finished reading one novel and started another. I played so many games of UNO and Blokus with my family. I walked thirteen miles around my neighborhood, winding through my favorite streets with the stunning views of Puget Sound and the Olympic mountains. I waved at my neighbors, the ones who have waved to me all summer while I walked in the morning hours. I haven't seen much of them this month because of the smoke and because I'm adjusting to a new schedule, and yesterday when a friendly grandpa who hikes around the same streets I do waved jauntily from a distance and said, "Haven't see you in a little while!" I grinned and grinned, because walking daily through this streets in the morning hours, meeting neighbors I've never known, has been an unexpected and beautiful blessing in quarantine.

Walking this same route every day over the past six months means I've noticed the seasons in an entirely new and intimate way. Spring. Summer. Fall. The way things bloom. The scents of different trees in different seasons. I've learned to name some of them. I've walked through the seasons of baby rabbits scurrying over the streets at dawn, and I've shared that with my kids. Now the squirrels are out in full force, as well as the neighborhood cats, hunting them. Yesterday I watched a black-and-white cat stalk a squirrel across a driveway, through a yard, and into the woods. I stopped and watched, just because I could. Just because I've become accustomed to noticing these small, ordinary moments that used to pass me by.

Maybe this is what it means to "really live" even while "sheltering in place." (I'm still curious about those folks who think they can't do that, to be honest, now that pretty much everything is open in some capacity. I asked that question last week and was answered with having the question deleted.)

Matt drove down to McMenamins and picked up takeout. We've enjoyed eating outdoors there, but the weather has been too tempestuous for the past two weeks (wildfires, rain) to open up patio seating this weekend. My burger was still delicious.

We had family movie night (The Art of Racing in the Rain, which checks all of the boxes for Dog Movies and it meant I cried a lot). Matt and I watched a few more episodes of Cobra Kai.

I had some face-to-face time with one of my best friends who teaches on the other side of the country, and we laughed and shared stories and flailed onscreen because everything is ridiculous and absurd. Becca and I haven't taught together in way too many years but every time we talk it's like we transport ourselves back to the same space, the space where we're planning a unit on The Great Gatsby or Purple Hibiscus together during a roundtable session for MYP and the world can be what it is but how amazing is it that we get to do this work?

I believe it's possible--and critically necessary--to stay present in the moment we're in, to notice the seasons, to care about each other, to practice self-care, and that's what "really living" means.

I miss people, desperately. Even people who disagree with me.

I miss the things I loved about our "normal" life. Desperately.

I miss teaching in the way I know how. I miss what I'm losing when I can't see my kids face-to-face.

But I also understand that we can't have normal. I believe that maybe, if we stop and listen, if we can try to be present, we can live deeply and fully and tap into our empathy for each other, that maybe we can be grateful for what we've learned and what we've gained, and maybe--maybe--that can make us better.

Anyway, it's the work of my life to try.

Because this is too much for a Facebook post

It's Monday evening, and my house is blessedly quiet. Suzannah is hunkered down in her room (because teenager), Isaac is in the family room with the iPad and his giant Lego organization project, and Matt is at Trader Joe's buying everything we might need for the dinners I have not planned yet for this week because that part of my brain stopped working sometime last Friday. I finished up my fourth day of remote professional development, promptly headed outside with Isaac for some biking (him) and jogging (me), came home and soaked in a bubble bath for a bit, and now...here I am. Just breathing. Just being.

To say I'm overwhelmed is just the most hilarious understatement of all time, but I am also grateful. I am also okay right now.

Friday was hard, and I stumbled into the weekend feeling exhausted and disheartened, my brain on a hamster wheel I couldn't quiet. There are so many unknowns. It's hard for me to begin a year feeling so unmoored, so unsure of what I'm doing. Back-to-school planning in August is something that usually fills me with so much joy, because I love this stuff! So much! I'm lucky to have the trust and relative freedom to teach my passion. I'm lucky to have a classroom space that feels like another home, falling-down moldy old building and all. One of the heartbreaking things about this pandemic is wondering if I taught my last class in my room back in March. Our new school is slated to open one year from now, and I'm sure it will be beautiful, but my classroom has held so much of my heart, and so many others' hearts. Hearts have been broken and put back together there and I feel it every time I walk inside. One of my favorite things about August is the quiet afternoons spent planning there, just sitting in that space. I'm still spending some time in that space this month, planning and writing and thinking, but it's different. The quiet isn't as cozy; somehow it's just a little nervous all the time.

I know what I need to teach, and the context doesn't diminish my passion for it. It's the "how" I'm still trying to wrap my brain around. But I keep reminding myself that we're all in this together, that we're all figuring out the how. And I really sat down here to write about that, I guess. I opened up this blog and found a draft of an entry I started a week or two ago, but what I started to write that evening isn't want I want to write tonight.

Tonight I'm not writing to convince my non-teacher friends that I deserve my paycheck. I'm not writing to my friends who think their children will fall behind (behind what, exactly?) in a remote public school setting, or who are frustrated because we can't give them what they think they need, which, I'm sorry to say, isn't possible in a pandemic. Those folks can just stop reading here and have a nice evening.

Tonight I'm writing to and for my colleagues. I'm writing to say: Thank you. Thank you for reminding me why I love where I work, that I'm not in this alone, that we take care of each other. Thank you for reminding me that the what and the why matters more than ever, and we will figure out the how together.

Thank you for reminding me that building authentic connections is not only possible but essential. We can still do that, and I truly believe that we will be creative and intentional in new and amazing ways this year.

 Thank you for your willingness to be vulnerable, for your fierce love of our kids and your fierce support of each other. 

Thank you for reassuring my terrified mama heart. My daughter is starting ninth grade in a new school while her friends head to a different one, and the thought of her trying to make connections with other kids over a computer screen breaks my heart a bit but not completely, because I am trusting her with the best of the best. I truly believe that she'll gain as much--if not more--than she'll lose. Thank you in advance for loving my girl. It has been my prayer, every single September of her school-aged life, that her teachers will love her like I do. Today we all posted little videos to introduce ourselves to our students, and when I mentioned this to my daughter, she was so excited to see her teachers. I watched some of the videos myself, and it reinforced my deeply-held belief that I work with the most phenomenal folks. It is no small thing to trust a school with your children, and when parents get a little crazy at me sometimes it helps to remember that. Thank you to my friends, my colleagues, for making that an easy choice for this mama, and apologies in advance if I ever get a little crazy. I'm lucky you already know me enough, probably, to anticipate that anyway (and please don't hold it against my girl, who is probably far more level-headed than her mother. She's a good girl).

While Friday found me disheartened, anxious, and exhausted, Monday afternoon left me literally weeping with gratitude, right there on the Zoom screen. I don't think that's ever happened at PD, but there you go, and I wasn't alone. I'm still so overwhelmed, and it's easy to start to panic if I look beyond the exact moment I'm in. To feel like I'm floundering after so many years of trusting that this is what I was born to do is a scary place to sit, but somewhere in all of this there are life rafts that not only pull me to safety but offer me a blanket, a glass of wine, a shared knowing glance, some real belly laughs, and the belief that even in this strange context, I am deeply privileged to be exactly where I am.

On Reopening Schools

NO ONE had better be lecturing teachers on how school closures affect students.

We know our kids need to be in school with us, and with each other. We know the burden it puts on families (including our own, but most of us also recognize that we were senselessly privileged to be able to keep our jobs, and do not for one second doubt that we deserve every dollar we earned during the school closure. Most of us worked harder in the last three months of the school year than we'd imagined could be possible when we didn't even see our kids). And we know it wasn't enough. Or it was too much. We know it didn't work, we know it was messy. My coworkers and I cried ourselves sick most nights in the beginning. We know nothing about it was "just right."

We understand the impact not just on their academic growth, but their mental and physical well-being, their emotional health, their very safety. And we understand this because we've been tasked with attending to these needs for a very long time, without a lot of support. Teachers pool their money to buy food and clothes for their students when they need to. We spend hundreds of our own dollars every year on supplies our district won't cover. We worry all summer long, and during breaks, because we know that school is so much more than academics to many of our students; it's a safe place to land, with predictability and routines and people who genuinely love them even when they're shitheads. (For that matter, that's why I love my school, too. I can be a perfect shithead sometimes, and my people there still love me. It's one of the reasons I've stayed for so long.)

Many of us tried to limp through a sudden free fall into "remote learning" while we tried to support our own families at home at the same time. Many of us are women, and I could write for days about the ways in which this pandemic has brought all sorts of gender inequalities into the glaring, unflattering light. Many of us have our own children at home. I have two absolutely wonderful, independent, resilient kids I love spending time with and I was absolutely not equipped to be their teacher. I have never once wanted to homeschool. I can hardly think of their teachers without literally weeping tears of sheer love and gratitude; they worked so hard to keep them engaged and connected, and we all still know it's not enough. We do all this while FOX news screams at us and every third comment on any story about teachers comes back to how it must be nice to get paid for nothing. And I think most of the time we can ignore that, because it's nothing new, but when you're experiencing trauma, you spend less time constructively taking on household projects and learning a side hustle or whatever and more time weeping into your wine and watching Outbreak too many times for it to be considered remotely healthy. (Or maybe that was just me?)

I'm not saying this because I want you to thank a teacher (although that's always nice) but because I want you to know WE GET IT. And we know everyone wants schools to open. We want schools to open. (If you doubt that I do, please read what I wrote only six weeks ago here.) But we want them to open safely, and what we DO NOT KNOW is how to do that safely, because no one has been able to provide answers beyond "We will follow these vague guidelines, created by people woefully out of touch with the reality of working in public schools."

Today, right now, these are a few of the questions I think NEED to be answered before anyone can expect teachers and students to return to work in a grotesque public health experiment. There are more, but let's start with the basics. And as of today, no one has been able to provide those answers. We shouldn't even consider returning to our schools until we have them. (Disclaimer: I know there are folks working so hard on precisely this, and I want to honor that. It is hard work. But we still need to know what it means for us and for our safety.)

What PPE will schools provide for staff and students? If masks are required (spoiler: in Washington, they are, and they are mandated at schools as well as everywhere else), who provides them for students who don't have them? Will teachers be expected to purchase our own face shields?

If a student takes off their mask or refuses to wear one, what will administrative support look like? What immediate steps will be taken? Don't tell me this won't be an issue. I teach teenagers who are terrible at social distancing. Younger kids are brand-new to wearing them and they're not great at social distancing. (I don't blame them! But also, seriously, what support will teachers receive?) Not only that, but there are folks on my Facebook friends list who are still posting about their refusal to comply with these government mandates, and in one case, they're also the ones insisting we figure it out and get their kids back to school because they need it. You know who you are, by the way, and I'm telling you right now, absolutely do not bother coming to comment here or on my Facebook page where I'm likely going to share this. I'm in no damn mood for that nonsense.

It's important to note that our concern about administrative support is real. I don't have a lot of "discipline" issues in my class, but I rely on proximity and close one-on-one conversations to handle a lot of issues. If my school district, not to mention state leadership, insists that we'll follow strict social-distancing protocol, please tell me what that looks like.

How will social/physical distancing be possible when the most my classroom can hold is about fifteen while still maintaining MINIMAL social distancing? (Seriously, that's if we're considering literally every inch of classroom space.) I am a program coordinator, so have about 130 students on my part-time teaching schedule; a full-time high school teacher in my district sees 180 kids, not including advisory. And what about classrooms that don't use individual desks but have tables instead? We have a lot of those. Who will provide different classroom furnishings?

Who will be responsible for cleaning and disinfecting rooms? How often will that happen?

Desks?
Light switches?
Door handles?
Shared supplies?
Pencil sharpeners?
Phones?
Laptops/chromebooks?

Will we be provided with adequate hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes, access to soap and water? In my 19 years of teaching, I can count on one hand the number of bottles of hand sanitizer I've been provided. One or two of them were distributed during particularly nasty flu seasons; otherwise I had to ask in the office. I've always bought my own disinfecting wipes and cleaning supplies, but can anyone even find those anywhere these days? And as the mother of children who go to public school, I don't think it should depend on individual teachers to sanitize entire classrooms after each use and hope they all have the same standards of cleanliness.

My room is not remotely well ventilated, and my windows don't work well. Custodians have requested I not try to open them as they're "sort of broken." What is the district's response to teaching in such rooms?

How will students maintain physical distance on buses? (Spoiler: While some districts claim they will maintain physical distancing at school, I have yet to see them make this claim about buses, and some are quite open about saying they won't be doing this. Where would we get the extra buses and drivers anyway? We were already barely scraping by.)

Two weeks of quarantine can wipe out an entire year of wellness/sick leave. If a staff member is exposed and needs to quarantine, because that is the morally responsible and socially necessary response, are they expected to use their sick leave?

If a staff member falls ill with COVID, recovery can take significantly longer than two weeks. What support will be available?

We have a severe shortage of substitute teachers. Can we reasonably expect them to cover for our classes during a COVID outbreak if the school doesn't close altogether after an exposure? If a teacher is infected with COVID, we all know it's not just a matter of staying home for a day or two. We'll need long-term substitutes who can deliver our curriculum.

If a student is exposed to COVID or tests positive, what are the next steps for the school? Does that student's teacher and class quarantine? In high school, students have multiple classes; do they all quarantine? Do they close? How will we alert families? If my own child is exposed at a different school, I would obviously need to self-isolate. What about my students? What if a student's sibling is exposed? We're a large district, and many of our families have children in different schools. Can you see how quickly this would escalate?

What specific circumstances would necessitate a school-wide closure?

If schools wouldn't close because a student or staff member was infected (and let's just say infected and not merely exposed, for the sake of argument), what steps would be taken to ensure everyone's safety?

If we're teaching in a hybrid model (that has been proposed by so many districts) and a teacher gets sick, with COVID or otherwise, would that teacher be allowed to teach remotely, or would a substitute be required?

If we are expected to teach remotely FROM our classrooms in an entirely online model, what happens if we get sick (COVID or otherwise)? Would we have the option to teach from home? If not, will we have subs equipped to step in and teach remotely for us? What will that look like?

Don't lecture teachers -- and for that matter, don't thank them either -- if you're not willing to advocate for them. The only folks who have been advocating for teachers are teachers, and make no mistake: when the "leaders" of our country call for a return to school, it's not because they care about our students. WE care about our students. And what we need is to be safe to do our jobs as well as we can. We shouldn't be your public health experiment.